The present invention relates to a new and useful dental cleaning solution that can be applied to a tooth brush or other object, and used to clean teeth and gums, especially a child's teeth and gums.
Many parents struggle with the initiation of tooth brushing during the early years of their child's development. Infants and toddlers often exhibit oral aversions to tooth brushes, and tooth pastes and gels applied to the toothbrushes. These traditional oral hygiene products produce food texture sensations of viscous paste and sudsy foam that many young children find unpleasant. Children under two years old typically are unable to expectorate the residual tooth paste after brushing, swallowing it instead. If the toothpaste contains standard concentrations of fluoride (1000 ppm), and if the child repeatedly swallows the paste over time, the risk of fluorosis (staining and enamel defects) of the permanent teeth which begin to erupt at age six greatly increases. For this reason, pediatricians and pediatric dentists do not usually recommend the introduction of fluoride containing tooth paste into the child's mouth until after age two, when they are able to learn to expectorate.
Early childhood caries (tooth decay) represents a silent epidemic in our society. Forty percent of children in the industrialized world develop the dental caries infection in their baby (primary) teeth by age six. Once established, this infectious disease can spread rapidly through the child's primary dentition causing dental cavities, mouth pain, difficulty eating and sleeping, and the need for expensive and frightening dental restorations that often require the child to be sedated or anesthetized. If the infection is not brought under control, it ultimately will involve the permanent teeth, setting the child up for a lifetime of dental problems.
Early childhood caries is preventable with early and regular oral hygiene beginning as soon as the baby teeth erupt. Given that babies and many toddlers are averse to tooth brushing and the mouth feel of toothpaste, and that fluoride containing toothpastes are generally not acceptable for use under age two, it is apparent that parents and their young children require an alternative dental cleansing product that is safe, effective, and palatable.